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buellwinkle

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Everything posted by buellwinkle

  1. When I recorded full time with I believe I had 6 cameras at the time, 2 1TB drives and I got a few days out of it. Why do you want to record full time? Just record events, if anything, the Hikvision cameras are pretty sensitive and will record more than you need anyway. Currently, with 10 cameras, i get a few days with a 1TB, so I bought a 3TB drive so i can hopefully get 10 days.
  2. Just get 4 1080P cameras, you'll have 4K now at 30fps. The least expensive deal is the 10MP ACTi E77, a little over 4K resolution and 30 fps (6 fps in 10MP mode) and under $300. I don't even think you'll see 4K cameras with 30 fps at any price for a while. Even the ones that have been announced from Axis and Bosch likely don't do too well at night.
  3. There's plenty to choose from. The largest two in the industry are Milestone and Exacq, both work well and stable. They didn't get to to be the top two with flakey software. Download both, they come with 30 day trials and see which one works best for you.
  4. I run 10 cameras, mostly 3MP (who use 1.3MP anymore), full frame rate, on an OLD Intel i3-540 processor, about 20% CPU busy. I would hate to run the CPU beyond 50% because then it generate to much heat, shortens it's life, so in my case, I can easily double the amount of cameras. The value prop is this, you did not factor in the cost of the HDD with the NVR, but many PC's already come with a HDD. Also, the NVR, if it breaks, your only option is likely get a new one, with a PC, it's likely to be repairable. Also, with software, I can support many different brands of cameras, with the NVR, you are very limited. Also, with an NVR, you are limited to the capacity of the device, for example, if you buy an 8 channel NVR, you can't add a 9th camera. Also, software license is permanent, NVR has a life. But lets change the numbers in your scenario, buy a used PC, $100, put in Milestone XProtect Go for $0 for 8 cameras. Which is cheaper now? Also, Axxonsoft, closer to your region, free for up to 16 cameras. Also, you can run Hikvision iVMS4200 NVR software for free, why run Milestone?
  5. You can run all the cameras to a PoE switch and connect the NVR to the same switch, no problem as long as you don't have any runs over 100m. Never did like the idea of an NVR with a built in PoE switch. Imagine a 16 port NVR, so 17 wires plus power going to an NVR under your TV, what a mess. What I do also is have two 8 PoE port switches, one in the attic in my garage, one in my office at the opposite corner and they are interconnected. This way I just wire to the nearest switch.
  6. If you buy a drive, consider the WD Purple drives, same price as others, but they claim to be purpose built for NVR use. I just ordered the 3TB version, $129 shipped from B&H, need to expand my 1TB not holding as much as it used to when I had 1/2 the cameras, LOL.
  7. Can you post an image from the camera?
  8. Yes, the NVR version of iVMS4200 which is different than the normal iVMS4200.
  9. Can you send me the davinci tar file via dropbox or ftp site? You can PM me the details of where it is.
  10. Yes, you can use iVMS4200 nvr software, doesn't use much CPU. I have not used it but I believe you can integrate the video from the NVR along with the 2 cameras, so looks like one. Someone that's done it can provide better insight.
  11. How good are you with Linux? You can telnet into the camera, find the mount point for the SD card, then use the ftpput command that's on the camera to ftp the files to your ftp server.
  12. What I've done which is easier, maybe cheaper, but certainly easier is to get one of those Android mini computers, they sell for maybe $40 and smaller than the Raspberry. They have HDMI that goes into the TV and USB powered so in my case, my TV had a USB port so powered by the TV, just sits back there without being noticed. Switch to the HDMI port on your TV and you have the full power of Android, meaning you can install camera apps from Q-See (I believe it's called iDMSS for Dahua or maybe Q-See has one branded with their name), then you can view the cameras, recordings and such from your TV. There's also 3rd party apps that work well. I used a wireless mouse dongle on the gizmo and then use the mouse to navigate the screen. It also doubles as a Netflix or YouTube player.
  13. You can get the Hikvision NVR, cost about $380ish + HDD. You also use software from free to cheap to expensive, invest in better cameras instead. Do you have a spare PC? The advantage of software is it can support many different brands. Also, you can get inexpensive PC's that will work for less than the NVR will cost. For example, Dell has a desktop now for $299 that will easily run 8 or more cameras using Hikvision's NVR software which is free. If you later decide you want to get non-Hikvision cameras, there's options out there from free for say limited versions of Axxonsoft, Milestone to cheap like BlueIris, to commercial grade in the $50/cam price range. Don't get me wrong, there are advantages to using an NVR, it's easier and more compact, but not as flexible as a PC. Also, if you go the PC route, you'll need a PoE switch as that's built into the router. To me the problem with the cheaper bundles while the price is awesome, you do lose flexibility in choosing lens sizes and camera models. I do like my three 12mm Hik bullets though.
  14. Actually, cameras tend to be pricier on Amazon as they have charge about 10% for their service. Even resellers on Amazon I know of, sell the same camera on their site for about 10% cheaper. The cheapest are analog cameras, $30 probably gets you a nice low end analog camera, but to record to a PC you need a special board. Then there's are IP cameras in many price ranges. Foscam is the sort of the leader in the under $100 space. Dahua & Hikvision are the leaders in the under $200 space. Then it goes up from there. IP cameras, at least beyond Foscam, require you inject power into your Ethernet cable as that's how they are connected and powered on the same wire. You'll need a PoE injector per camera or a PoE switch to handle multiple cameras. For an IP camera to record to a PC, clearly the PC has to be turned on when you want it to record. You'll need software, ranges from free, to low priced, to high priced. Many here use BlueIris software for the low end, about $39, runs on Windows, easy to setup. Free would be Zoneminder on Linux. Also, some higher end software like Milestone provide a free version, their XProtect Go is free for 8 cameras and limited to 5 days recording. As for resolution, HD, non-HD, UHD, that depends on what you are trying to do. You need someone's face to be at least 85 pixels tall to identify them, or 45 pixels tall to recognize them. So you can have someone standing 20' away and recognize them with VGA or HD, depends on focal length of your lens. For example, maybe you can use a 1080P camera with a wide angle lens vs. a telephoto lens with a VGA camera. So the more pixels you have to play with, the wider the field of view you can effectively use. So in your price range, $200 for a two camera system, check out Foscam. the Foscam FI8905W is a popular outdoor camera, the Foscam FI8910W is a popular indoor camera. Both plug into with their included power brick adapter. Both use WiFi to connect. They are good starter cameras and make sure you buy from a place that gives good service & warranty. If you want something real for that $200, get a Hikvision ds-2cd2032-i, a very good starter camera, $167 shipped, 3MP and an order of magnitude better than Foscam. Then get a PoE injector, about $15 and use their free iVMS software and smartphone apps. Wait until you get more money, then get something for indoors.
  15. You have Swann, Trendnet & Lorex selling Hik OEM. The problem with their OEM is they are limited in what models, lenses and stuff they have. LTS probably has the largest selection and their cameras are starting to look nothing like Hikvision, so I bet in a year, it will be two distinct lines both in appearance and functionality.
  16. Is there a way to put Hikvision firmware on the Lorex NVR?
  17. buellwinkle

    Help on advice for height of cctv cams

    It's not so much the height as the purpose. A camera mounted to the ceiling is great for an overview of that is going on but you may want close-up cameras at entrances so you can ID the person as they enter/leave the store. These should be mounted low, about eye height to capture their faces as best you can and do so with good WDR so you don't get shadows from the brim of a hat. If a close-up camera is too obtrusive, you can use covert cameras like what is used in ATM's where very little shows, maybe 1/4" tip of a lens.
  18. buellwinkle

    Advice required

    What you are looking for is very unique and VueZone is the answer. Seems like Netgear has bought them since I last seen them years ago - http://www.vuezone.com/use-ideas/battery-powered-camera Let us know how they work out.
  19. So just one car in a fixed location, not a car anywhere in a large parking lot? If you got a lens that can ID someone at 200m, it will probably have a field of view of a few degrees. This is like looking through a telescope. So it will see an area say 4m wide at 200m. You will not likely get a good picture because during the day, heat bouncing off the cars will distort the image, at night, any haze, mist will block the image at that distance You can't really use a PTZ, at least not the ones I'm familiar with that are like 30X optical zoom as it's not going to reach that far for ID purposes. Most of them only go about 120-130mm, great for up to 100m, maybe 150m.
  20. Set the IP to an unused IP on your subnet (the first 3 numbers in the IP address). Do a ping to see if the address is being used. Use ifconfig to see what you Ubuntu PC is using and use the same subnet mask and gateway.
  21. It has these green plastic drive holders. You ply them apart and pins in the holder go into where screws would go in on the side of the drives to hold it in place. Then it clips into the chassis, 2 at the bottom, 2 on top. The cables are already there, just plug them in, but not like a drive cage, you have to plug the sata and power cable in.
  22. I went the opposite way on commercial installs with a Dell T20 with the Xeon processor. On sale it's cheaper, but full price is $499. It's probably close to a consumer grade i5 processor in performance which is way more than enough for say a dozen cameras on XProtect (at home I run 10 cameras, mostly 3MP, all full frame rate on an old, old i3-540 processor). It has 6 drive bays, 4 are 3 1/2", easy to pop in. It's made to be a 24/7 server so the fans are beefier, the components are beefier, overall well made compared to their consumer PCs and it's small, about the size of a regular desktop. From an article I read from a law enforcement surveillance cameras consultant is the #1 failure for police departments that use consumer grade PC's as NVRs is the fans go out. Could be the CPU fan, the case fan, the power supply fan. When a fan goes out, if you are very lucky it costs you a new fan, but in many cases, the fan failure goes unnoticed because it's not a daily use PC, so other components overheat and fail. In my personal case recently, CPU fan failed took the motherboard out, PC became landfill material. But think if you get a new consumer grade PC as an NVR, it should last at least 2-3 years.
  23. Your biggest problem is you are out of your league running Linux. First understand while Linux is Linux, every distribution is very different so the file name that contains the Ethernet config or a gui that make it easier is different for Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian and so on. You best bet is to go to the Ubuntu forum and ask there - http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=327 We can spend a lot of time going back and forth on how to set a static IP on your Ubuntu PC so you can set the IP on your camera or you can find a friend, neighbor or someone with a Windows PC, install SADP and set a static IP on the camera. You cannot move forward without doing that first. Then the second issue is if you go beyond this unsurmountable task of setting the IP address on your camera, it will not be viewable with a browser on any flavor of Linux. So you will have to run something else to view the cameras and it won't be easy because if Ubuntu network scares you, you ain't seen nothing yet, wait for Zoneminder.
  24. The IP address of the camera is 192.0.0.64 out of the box. Normally on Windows they provide a program called SADP that finds it lets you change it. But in your case, since you have no access to Windows, you would need to change your server's IP in that subnet, say 192.0.0.128. Then you can connect via a browser but you won't see video. Login with admin/12345, click on Configuration tab, click on Network on the menu on the left, put in what IP you want for the camera, subnet mask, gateway and click save. Then you can change your Ubuntu server back to it's original IP and you can connect to the camera using a browser to verify (still no video). Then you can use Zoneminder or VLC to view the live streaming video. If you can configure Linux, Zoneminder is not much harder. It's purposely made hard to make you feel like you are in Linux. There are commercial grade NVR software for Linux, for example Exacq should work on Ubuntu. They have a low cost entry version called Start. Trade off is CPU costs vs. software cost.
  25. They had HD cameras for a while now, 720P. So the new one is 1080P and has IR and 3X zoom, sounds good if they can sell it for $99. That thing is a beast though, 12" long and 4" round. Good to see them use standard PoE for a change, but 12.5W, ouch, that's double just about anything out there. Comes with a PoE injector. I believe their NVR software is Zoneminder, a free open source product and they put their own skin on it. The problem with Zoneminder it's CPU resource heavy.
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